How To Roll Fresh Pasta By Hand

How to Make Fresh Pasta By Hand. I am a pasta purist: there is no substitute for making, kneading, rolling, and cutting the fresh pasta dough entirely by hand, from start to finish. Anyone who has tasted the incomparable fresh pasta made by hand is apt to agree. The color of hand-stretched pasta is deep, its surface is etched by a barely visible pattern of hollows intersecting ridges. Fresh Pasta dough must be thoroughly worked to develop and release the flour’s gluten, which gives the pasta dough the elasticity needed to produce pasta with both tenderness and bite. It must also be given time to rest, to relax the gluten that you’ve just developed. Never skimp on kneading and resting. These steps will make it much easier to roll out the fresh pasta dough into thin and thinner pasta sheets. The kneading technique: knead just enough to gather the pasta dough into a mass, then use the palm of your hand to push and pull on the pasta dough, folding it over and then smoothing out the seam. Continue until the pasta dough is elastic and smooth and elastic. This can take as long as ten-fifteent minutes. Learn the rolling-pin method is not just a question of precise instructions but rather of learning a craft. In hand-rolled pasta, the pasta dough is thinned by stretching it, with a succession of hand motions, over the length of a special pasta wooden rolling-pin. The rolling pin for pasta is narrower and longer than normal pins. Its classic dimensions are 4,2 cm in diameter and 100 cm in lengt. The instructions must be executed again and again with patience. The first step: flatten pasta dough slightly by pounding it three times with the palm of your hand. Place the pasta rolling pin across the flattened top of the pasta ball, about one-third of the way in toward its center. The pasta rolling pin must be parallel to the edge of the table near you. 5Open out the ball of pasta dough by pushing the pin forward, letting it roll lightly backward to its starting point, and pushing it forward again. Repeat the operation 5 or 6 times. Do not at any time allow the pasta rolling pin to roll onto or past the far edge of the pasta dough. Turn the pasta dough a full quarter turn, and repeat the above operation. Continue to turn the gradually flatter disk of pasta dough a full quarter turn at first, then gradually less, but always in the same direction. If you are doing it correctly, the ball will spread into a circular shape. The second step: begin to stretch the pasta dough. Hold the near edge of the pasta dough down with one hand. Place the pasta rolling pin at the opposite, far edge of the dough, laying it down parallel to your side of the board. One hand will be working the pasta rolling pin while the other will act as a stop, holding down the edge of the dough nearest you. Curl the far edge of the pasta dough around the pasta rolling pin. Begin to roll the pasta rolling pin toward you, taking up as much pasta dough as needed to fit snugly under the pasta rolling pin. Hold the near edge of the pasta dough still with your other hand. Roll the pasta rolling pin toward you, then use the heel of your palm to push it back. Push, making the pasta sheet of dough taut between your two hands, and stretching it. Keep rolling the pasta rolling pin toward you, stopping, pushing it forward to stretch the pasta dough, taking up more dough with it, rolling it toward you, stopping, stretching, repeating the sequence several times until you have taken up all the pasta dough on the pin. Rotate the pin 180°, uncurl the pasta dough from it, and repeat the operation once again. Repeat the pasta rolling and stretching operation described above until the pasta dough is once again completely wrapped around the pin. Continue this method until the pasta sheet of dough has been stretched to a large disk. When the pasta is not thin enough: please practice and practise. Roll the pasta as thin as possible, keeping in mind you should be able to see your hand.